Saying Goodbye to the Omineca Princess

Author

Michael Riis-Christianson, Curator

​​The Lakes District is saying goodbye to an old friend this month.
 
Crews began dismantling the MV Omineca Princess this week. Destruction of the grand old girl nearly a half-century after her launch marks the end of an era in the Lakes District.
 
The Omineca Princess was the third steel-hulled ferry to ply the waters of Francois Lake and the last operated here by the provincial government. Constructed by Allied Shipbuilders Ltd. of Vancouver for $2.698 million, the 765-tonne vessel was shipped north in segments and assembled at Nicholson Bay. (The cartage company had to make 22 trips.) Heavy rain and record water levels delayed the vessel’s launch, but the 192-foot-long steel hull got its first taste of Francois Lake on June 9, 1976.
 
A large crowd gathered at Northbank four days later to celebrate the vessel’s completion. Shirley Kempf, wife of Omineca MLA Jack Kempf, cut a ribbon on the boarding ramp with help from 92-year-old pioneer John Keefe. Then more than 200 people boarded the Omineca Princess for a short tour of Francois Lake and the inaugural run to Southbank.
 
No infrastructure project would be complete without speeches from politicians. Provincial Highways Minister Alex Fraser said the vessel would change the economic face of the “south country” by permitting heavy logging equipment and cattle liners to cross the lake.
 
Social Credit MLA Kempf, who’d been in office less than seven months, was more conservative with his predictions. “None of us have any idea what an impact this new vessel will make on the south country,” he said. “Some will be for the better, some for the worse.”
 
Despite his guarded comments, Kempf – like most people on the ferry that day – must have been in a good mood. The bombastic MLA, who later in his political career earned the nickname “Wolfman Jack” for his vociferous support of predator control in Northern BC, shared credit with the man who had previously represented the constituency.
 
“I have to compliment the vision of my predecessor [New Democrat Doug Kelly] as MLA, who saw the need for this ferry,” Kempf said. “I must give that kind of tribute. It doesn’t matter what flag we fly as long as we give the service to the area.”
 
The comment drew a round of applause, as did Fraser’s promise that his government would not charge people for riding the ferry.
 
 “There are no ferry fares here,” the highways minister said. “There never were, and there never will be, as far as I am concerned.”
 
The comment came back to haunt the provincial government decades later.
 
The Omineca Princess was very different from its predecessor, the MV Jacob Henkel. The Henkel, named after one of the first Euro-Canadians to homestead in the Lakes District, was constructed in an era when shipping firms spent lavishly on passenger vessels. The Henkel’s wheelhouse and waiting room high above its narrow car deck were tiny by 1976 standards but featured teak handrails, gleaming brass work, wooden benches, and a massive ship’s wheel that looked like it had been lifted from a nineteenth-century schooner. The Omineca Princess was far more utilitarian; synthetic materials were used instead of exotic woods, brass accents were few, and its ship’s wheel was not much larger than an automobile’s.
 
Southside residents may have missed the Jacob Henkel’s stylish design, but they appreciated the new ferry’s capacity. The Jacob Henkel could comfortably accommodate 16 automobiles and wasn’t designed to carry logging trucks (though it occasionally did). It served the area adequately in the 1950s and early ‘60s when few people lived on the Southside and most of the area’s timber was processed locally by small portable mills. By the 1970s, though, it couldn’t handle the traffic volume – as evidenced by the long line-ups at both ferry terminals. The queue of cars and trucks waiting to board the Henkel on Saturday mornings often stretched along Uncha Lake Road and partway up Southbank Hill.
 
Delays were minimal after Omineca Princess was launched – at least during its first decade of service. One hundred and ninety-two feet long, capable of carrying 34 vehicles and 200 passengers, the Princess had more than double the capacity of the old ferry. Perhaps more importantly, it could transport commercial vehicles because the passenger lounge, bridge, and wheelhouse were on one side of the car deck.
 
These attributes made the Princess a hit with Southsiders, most of whom depended on the ferry to reach Francois Lake’s north side. Tatalrose resident Fred Paulig communicated the prevailing sentiment in a thoughtful commentary written a few months after the new vessel’s launch.
 
“It’s an inspiring sight to see our Princess sliding into her berth smoothly, guided by expert hands,” Paulig stated in a letter to the Lakes District News on September 22, 1976. “There is none of that frantic shuffle loading and unloading that we had on the ‘Old Jacob.’ … I’ve sized up the Princess and I think she’s worth all the dough they sunk into her. Even if this were not so, us country hicks got a slice of the Victoria pie at last.
 
“Our Princess makes a turn at Southbank landing getting out, and she trembles as her engines go from reverse to forward. Then she turns her stern on the ‘Ole Jacob’ and glides away majestically, full speed ahead. She trembles a little, just a wee bit, mind you. Is it the trembling of a blooded horse, anxious to be off, or is it one of anticipation? Anxiety perhaps; “Ole Jacob” is still there. He will be waiting to jump into the breach and fill the gap. Gals are fickle, you know.”
 
It wasn’t just the vessel that changed in 1976. Captain Ed Ashe and Engineer William Corner were the only two Princess crew members who had served on all three steel-hulled ferries.
 
The change in personnel didn’t affect service. The newcomers approached their tasks with equal dedication. Although one government review identified several mechanical and procedural deficiencies on board the Princess, it found little fault with the employees. According to the Lakes District News, the crew’s enthusiasm resulted in “well-though-out safety equipment and [an] impressive standard of maintenance/housekeeping.”
 
Yet the Omineca Princess did more than transport vehicles on Francois Lake. It also played a key role in telecommunications.
 
In November 1978, the Omineca Princess worked with BC Tel employees and Shields Navigation to lay a new telephone line across Francois Lake. The 10,000-foot continuous strand of armoured submarine cable, housed on a spool measuring 9.5 feet by 15 feet and weighing more than 40 tonnes, arrived in Burns Lake by rail. It was then transported south to Francois Lake on a low bed trailer and loaded into a specially fabricated cradle on board Princess.
 
Crews worked throughout the night in bone-chilling cold, gusting winds, and blowing snow to ready the Princess. When dawn arrived, Captain Ashe weighed anchor and the vessel started across Francois Lake at a steady 1.5 knots (slower than a walking speed), the submarine cable trailing behind like a glistening black snake.
 
Despite the challenges, the job was completed by 4 p.m. More than 100 inflated inner tubes were used to keep excess cable afloat while tradesmen finished their work.
 
Although the Omineca Princess was occasionally sidelined for refits – and experienced a few mechanical problems – it provided almost uninterrupted service for nearly 30 years. Its time on Francois Lake wasn’t without controversy, though.
 
For nearly two decades, the vessel’s wastewater was pumped into a septic field for treatment. Around 1995, though, the Princess was fitted with an onboard marine sanitation system and began releasing treated sewage into the lake.
 
Francois Lake residents were incensed. Ministry of Transportation and Highways officials tried to allay concerns at a public meeting, noting that the amount of effluent released daily totaled about five litres, but the 130 people in attendance were not mollified.
 
One speaker summed up the prevailing opinion: “[Maybe it is] five litres a day, but for me, a pint a day is not acceptable.”
 
By the end of August 1995, the ferry was no longer discharging waste water into Francois Lake.
 
It wasn’t the only time public opinion influenced government policy. On at least three other occasions, determined resistance by residents forced the province to rethink its plans for the Francois Lake ferry.
 
Government ferry service on Francois Lake has always been free. Despite Highways Minister Fraser’s assurances in 1976 that no one would be charged for riding the Omineca Princess, the government tried three times to implement tolls.
 
The first instance – or the threat of it – occurred only a year after the Princess’s launch. In August 1977, word spread through the community that the provincial government planned to implement tolls on the ferry. It may have only been a rumour, but it was enough to spark outrage. (As a long-time resident noted recently, “mentioning the possibility of putting tolls on the Francois Lake ferry is like kicking a beehive on the Southside.”)
 
Residents mobilized for a fight. They had a powerful ally in MLA Kempf, who said fares would be implemented “over my dead body.” He then went to the highways minister and received assurances that the Francois Lake ferry service would remain free.
 
According to an old saying, “If, at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and that’s what the provincial government did. The Social Credit administration considered implementing tolls in 1986, but backtracked in the face of public opposition.
 
Sixteen years later, perhaps thinking “three’s the charm,” the province made another attempt to collect money from passengers. In February 2002, Premier Gordon Campbell introduced legislation that would make customers pay to ride BC’s inland ferries. At about the same time, the Ministry of Transportation announced that it planned to reduce the Princess’s daily hours of service.
 
The surprise move sparked an immediate response. Residents formed the Francois Lake Ferry Committee to fight the changes and began gathering information on the ship’s social and economic importance to the region. The result was a document entitled “Two Worlds Separated by Two Miles,” which made a compelling case against the government’s proposals.
 
Although the government claimed cutting the Omineca Princess’s hours of operation would save taxpayers $365,000 annually, ferry committee members suggested the move would cost the province millions in lost revenue. One committee member said last week that information revealed that the Omineca Princess was costing the government about $250 per hour but generated three times that amount in provincial revenue.
 
“The Liberal government’s plan to reduce the hours of service on the Francois Lake ferry will result in millions of dollars of lost stumpage revenue,” stated the document’s authors. “…this action will greatly impair the ability to move timber to mills north of Francois Lake … If three ferry sailings are slashed, Victoria loses over $10,000 per day, $50,000 per week, or $200,000 per month, or over $2 million over the course of a ten-month logging season.
 
“Both of these measures [tolls and reduced hours of operation] will have immediate and far-reaching impacts on residents, workers, and companies that operate on the Southside. Burns Lake and area will also be severely impacted … [We] believe that reduced hours of operation and imposition of tolls will result in a net loss of revenue to the Crown.”
 
The Francois Lake Ferry Committee argued that the province needed to improve ferry service here, not reduce it and impose tolls. They noted that the Omineca Princess transported 4,037 loaded logging trucks and 3,317 recreation vehicles across Francois Lake in 1998. The timber carried by the logging trucks was likely worth $6.459 million to the province, they said, and the fuel tax generated by all those gas-guzzling RVs had to be significant.
 
Although the ferry committee preferred to work with officials rather than against them, it wasn’t averse to using civil disobedience to make its point. When Liberal MLA Dennis Mackay tried to board the Princess at Southbank after a meeting on the Southside, residents blockaded the ferry terminal. Mackay had no option but to drive around the head of Francois Lake – a distance of more than 130 km. It gave him a new appreciation for the Omineca Princess.
 
On another occasion, irate residents stopped traffic on Highway 16 in Burns Lake for fifteen or twenty minutes, then walked downtown. “I’ll never forget the parade of loaded logging trucks honking their horns,” recalls one man who participated in the rally.
 
Faced with overwhelming opposition across the province, the Campbell government finally scrapped its plan to implement tolls – much to the relief of Southside residents.
 
“This is a victory to all the citizens and groups that fought very hard to keep tolls off our local highway system,” Southside resident Mike Robertson reportedly said to the Lakes District News. “It is a testament to the grit and spirit of the residents whose livelihoods were challenged by an uninformed government.”
 
While the decision not to implement tolls was welcomed here, the community still faced uncertainty. The Liberals were committed to privatizing BC’s inland ferries, and no one knew how it would affect service on Francois Lake.
 
One thing was obvious, however: Francois Lake needed a new ferry.
 
By the turn of the millennium, Southside residents were again waiting for their ship to come in. Line-ups at the landings were the rule, not the exception. In February 2002, one logging truck driver said he had to wait five hours to board the ferry at Southbank. Delays of three hours were common.
 
The problem wasn’t mechanical. The Omineca Princess, despite being almost 30 years old, wasn’t any slower. It still traveled across the lake at a speed of about 10 knots (about 18 kilometres per hour), and its diesel engines remained strong. The wait times were caused by traffic volume.
 
There were too many vehicles and not enough deck space.
 
Southsiders had been pleading for a larger ferry for some time, but it sometimes seemed no one was listening. Then they got help from an unexpected source.
 
Today, the idea that an insect less than a centimeter long could decide the fate of a 765-tonne passenger vessel might seem ludicrous. Yet as one Southsider points out, the Omineca Princess might have remained in service far longer if not for the mountain pine beetle.
 
In the 1990s, a succession of warm winters and decades of wildfire suppression resulted in a pine beetle infestation of epic proportions. The insects spread quickly across the landscape, leaving a sea of dying pine trees in their wake. Almost overnight, forests that had once been green were red and dead.
 
Efforts were made to stop the devastation, but it was too late. By 2004, the bugs were killing more than 100 million cubic metres of mature pine a year in BC.
 
The Lakes District, a region dominated by pine forests, was one of the areas hardest hit. As the losses mounted, the province shifted into salvage mode. The district’s Allowable Annual Cut, which had traditionally been around 1.5 million cubic metres, was increased to 3.2 million. Companies tried frantically to harvest the dead timber before time and weather destroyed its economic value.
 
All this industrial activity placed increased pressure on the highway system. Dozens of logging trucks and other commercial vehicles needed to get across Francois Lake each day, and time was of the essence. The Omineca Princess became a transportation bottleneck that impeded the flow of logs to sawmills along Highway 16.
 
The province solved the problem by getting a bigger bottle.
 
In 2003, the province chose Waterbridge Equipment Inc. as the new ferry service provider on Francois Lake. The company, which has a long history of designing, building, and operating passenger vessels on BC’s inland lakes, brought a new, larger ferry to Francois Lake.
 
Two hundred twenty feet long and capable of carrying 52 vehicles – and, more importantly, eight loaded logging trucks – the MV Francois Forester entered service in November 2004. The Omineca Princess was demoted to reserve status and berthed at Northbank.
 
The Princess’s retirement was supposed to be temporary. Government officials thought the vessel would be laid up for eight years, after which traffic volumes on the Francois Lake run would return to pre-beetle levels that the Princess could handle. It didn’t happen. The years went by, and with a few exceptions, the Princess remained idle.
 
In 2008, a report found traces of asbestos in the “hard face spray coating” that sealed the insulation below the Princess’s car deck. The material was later removed, but the vessel’s days were numbered.
 
There was talk of making the Omineca Princess a tourist attraction when it became obvious she would never resume her old duties. Some folks suggested converting it to a museum ship or a tour vessel capable of taking visitors on sightseeing trips along Francois Lake. Others thought the Princess would make a great floating casino.
 
All bets were off. Nothing came of these ideas, perhaps because the financial cost of maintaining the vessel’s certification is so high. It wasn’t even worth taking the Princess apart and shipping it to another inland lake.
 
Today, the vessel that served this community almost continuously for nearly three decades is valued solely for its scrap value.
 
When the Omineca Princess disappears beneath the wreckers’ shears, she will leave behind memories and a legacy of service. According to one source, she traveled at least a million miles during her 48 years on Francois Lake – a distance equal to more than 40 circumnavigations of the globe. She probably carried at least ten times that many passengers and vehicles. For some people, riding the Princess was their first trip; for others, it was their last.
 
Goodbye, old girl. You may be gone, but aren’t forgotten.
 
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Do you have a story about the Omineca Princess? Share it in the comments section below or email it to [email protected].
 
© 2024 Michael Riis-Christianson and the Lakes District Museum Society